Improvement in registering marine logs



A. GORDON.

Registering Marine vLogs.

Patented Dec. 8, 1863.

Inventor:

' scribe it.

to the lower part of the shaft A, under the bot- Urvrrnp @TATEQ A LEXAND it R G ORDON,

OF NEW YORK, Y.

iMPROVEMENT lN REGESTERENG MARiNE QGS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent NO. il.,34il, datedDecember 8, i963.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, ALEXANDER GonDoN, of thecity, county, and State of New York, have invented a new and usefulImprovement in the Registering Marine Log; and I do hereby declare thatthe following is a full, clear, and exact description of the same,reference being bad to the accompanying drawings, forming part of thisspecification, in which Figure l is a vertical section of a log with myimprovement. Fig. 2 is a plan of the compass.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts in bothfigures.

The object of this invention is to register the directions of thedistances run by a ship or other vessel as well as the distancesthemselves; and to this end it consists in the combination, with anapparatus substantially like what has been heretofore known as the registerin g marine log, or patent log, of a compass of peculiarconstruction, and an apparatus connected with the registering mechanismfor dropping pellets into a compartment of the said compass whenever acertain distance has been made by the vessel to which the log isapplied.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I willproceed to de- A is a hollow upright shalt extending from the cabin downthrough the bottom of the vessel, and having securely and rigidlyattached to its lower end a vane, B, which by the equal pressure of thewater on opposite sides of it is always kept in a plane parallel withthe direction of the vessel through the water. Besides the vane B thereis also rigidly secured tom of the vessel, a box, 0, which contains thebearings of the horizontal shaft a, to which is attached the smallscrew-propeller like wheel 1), which has rotary motion given to it bythe pressure of the water as it is carried through it by the vessel. Thevane B always remains behind the shaft and the propeller in front of it.The shaft a has upon its periphery a screwthread which gears with aworm-gear, (not shown,) which is fast on the lower end of a shaft, 2),which passes directly through the hollow shaft A up into the cabin, andon the upper part of which there is a screw-thread, c,

which gears with a worm-gear, (7, on the first shaft, (1, of theregistering-train (l cfg, which is furnished with indices h M, toindicate upon suitable dials the number of knots or miles run by thevessel. The apparatus which I have thus far described does not differessentially in construction or operation from some of theselfregistering logs heretofore used. The propeller D and screw-threadon its shaft a give motion to the gear at the bottom of the shaft 1; andto the said shaft, and the screw-thread 0 gives motion to the worm-gear(Z and to the registering-train.

E is compass-box suspended within the cabin from any suitable support,F, by means of a jointed frame, G G H l S, the pendulous side pieces, GG, of which are hung on gimbals m m, so that the compass-box is alwaysin a horizontal position. The center piece, H, of this frame, which isrigidly attached to the box E, and concentric and perpendicular thereto,is connected by cross-pieces I and pin-joints 71 ,156 with the pendulousside pieces, G G, and it is made of tubular form to permit the passagethrough it ofa tube, J, which is also suspended from the support F bymeans of a gimbal, n. The lower part of this tube is bent outward fromthe center of the compass-box and compass, aud the upper part isconnected by a flexible tube, 1), with the guard or shell g, whichpartly surrounds a vertical wheel, K, the upper part of which works inthe throat of a hopper, L, containing a number of shot or pellets, r r.This wheel K has in its periphery, at equal distancesapart in a circun1- ferential line, a row of cup-like cavities, s s, which are justlarge and deep enough to reeeive each one of the shots or pellets r rfrom the hopper as the said cavities pass through the throat of thehopper in the revolution of the wheel. The wheel is geared with apinion,.t, on a shaft, to, which has also secured upon it aratchet-wheel, a, in which works a pawl, 1;, connected with aneccentric, c, on the first shaft, d, of the register-train. The gimbaln, in which the tube J is hung, is supported in a horizontal spurgear,M, which works in a suitable bearing in the support F, and whichcorresponds in size and number of teeth with a spurgear, N, on thehollow shaft A, to which the vane 13 is secured, and the two gears .i Nare geared together by an intermediate gear, 1?, so that the tube J iscompelled to turn with and in the same direction as the hollow shaft A,when the latter is turned by the action of the water on the vane B, onany change in the direction of the vessel. The gears M N P are so gearedthat the bent lower end of the tube J will always point in the oppositedirection to the vane B, and consequently in the direction in which thevessel is moving through the water.

The compass-card Q is attached to the top of a light box, R, ofcard-board or otherlight material, in which there are a number of radialpartitions, 0c 00, forming a number of equal radial compartments, 2 2,corresponding with the principal divisions of the compasseithersixteenorthirty-two thesaidcompartmentshaving openings which presentthemselves opposite the opening in the lower end of the tube J. The cardQ and box It are attached to the magnetic needle, and the whole balancedin the usual way on a central point, y, secured in the box E. Thecompartments may each have a cup, 2, in the bottom for the reception ofthe pellets, which are dropped into them from the tube J.

As the registering apparatus operates the eccentric o actuates the pawl12 and produces an intermittentrotary movementof the ratchetwheel a,gear 25, and wheel 70, such movement taking place at the completion ofeach mile or other distance run by the vessel, and 'being sufficient topresent a new cavity 8 opposite tothe lower opening of the casing q,where the pipe 2) is connected, and hence as the cavities 8 s, which arebetween the hopper and the pipe 12, each contain a pellet, the saidmovement causes a pellet to be deposited in the pipe 19,-

received in the compartments the distance run by the vessel toward eachpoint ofthe compass is ascertained. The whole distance run isascertained by the indices h t'j.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent,is-

The combination, with the registering marine log, of a compass dividedinto compartments 2 z for the reception of pellets or their equivalents,and an apparatus for dropping a pellet into one of said compartmentswhenever the vessel has made a certain distance, the delivering tube orportion of the said dropping apparatus being so controlled as to alwayspoint in the direction in which the vessel is moving through the water,and the whole operating substantially as and for the purpose hereinspecified.

ALEXANDER GORDON. Witnesses:

Tnos. S. J. DOUGLAS, J. W. (JooMBs.

